sugar bombs

I fall for the supermarket arrangement scam every time.

Each time, I turn into the vegetable/fruit section, spend some quality time sniffing lemons, picking out the best mushrooms, the crispest apples, the plumpest ears of corn, all with the jet-speed help of my little farm hands, who think we're running a race and move accordingly. By the time we're done there and I've done the detours into the bread/deli area and the butcher section, the kids are beginning to show signs of strain and tiredness and an obscene fondness with the blood pressure machine in the drugstore. By the time I drag them off that, the whinging and carrying on isn't too far off. We stump through paper products, pet food, canned goods, household products, (while maintaining that the toy aisle simply isn't there) and arrive at the cereal aisle. By now, I've shot the Mom-glare six times, hissed 'Stay with the cart!' twelve gagillion times, and am unenthused and heartily sick of the whole operation. I mean, eating is over-rated, really.

Which is why we tend to end up with the bad cereal.


Oh, I used to fight the good fight about this. Back before I was outnumbered (and back before the boy realized marshmallows existed) we had Cheerios. Rice Crispies. Granola. The basics. He didn't care.

Now we have a girl. Who is programmed (are they all like this?) to be hyper-sensitive to pinks and purples, so any bright colored box catches her eye and screams her name.

So while I'm busy veto-ing Lucky Charms (otherwise known as the repository for ALL the food coloring numbers*) Cass is eying up the boxes for whatever prizes are hiding inside the waxy paper insides. Score! Indiana Jones!

'Mo-om? Can we.....' I swung around and eyed the box. Wheat. Good. We'd had this before. Oh look, a new flavor! Okay.

Then, this morning....

'Mo-om? This doesn't taste good.'

I lifted my head from my coffee cup. Why can't the kids sleep in? Not even once??
Huh? What? Who said that? Oh, the Boy.

'It's too...sweet.'

Blink-blink. You - think it's too sweet? Let me have a taste.
He obligingly brought me his bowl. I dipped, spooned, chewed.
And winced as my tongue went into spasms of sugar shock.

Toast, anyone?

From now on, I'm going to the cereal aisle first. Best to get that battle over with.

Public Safety Notice: Do not EVER EVER EVER buy Vanilla Flavour Mini-Wheats. Despite the (weakly) healthy sounding name, actually putting a biscuit in your mouth will cause the greasy, curling sensation of licking out an icing container.

You're welcome.


*Red Dye #7, Blue Dye #3, etc. A clunky reference.